It's The Prisoner which will first spring to the mind of those who mourn. McGoohan's dryly comic but ultimately elusive and rather sad, existentially hysteric former spy 'No.6' began each episode raving 'I am not a number! I am a free man' only to discover the recurrent impossibility of that freedom.

However, he does have the last laugh. The show also began with an exchange with his nemesis No.2, of whom McGoohan demands, 'What do you want?' 'We want information.' 'Well you won't get it!'